Veronica’s story

Share

The borehole in Kantukure Village provides water to over 250 families; a total of 1,500 people. Veronica often has to wake up early to collect water due to the lengthy queues at the water pump and, with such heavy usage, it often used to break down. Veronica told us:

“When our borehole stopped working in March 2016, we had nowhere to collect water so we had to use the nearest open water source which made me very ill. I experienced very bad diarrhoea for the first week and this continued for a period of three months.

Many people in my village experienced problems with diarrhoea and even Malaria too, as the open water source that we had to use had lots of mosquitoes around it. We had to spend money on medicine as we were so sick.

In my house I need five containers of water per day (125 litres) for drinking, washing, cooking etc. At the time that I was ill it was very difficult to collect water, my children had to help me.”

When the village pump broke, Veronica had no choice but to collect water for her family from an unsafe open water source

Our programme in Kantukure Village has now provided villagers, including Veronica and her family, with the tools and knowledge to repair and maintain their water pump themselves.

“When the borehole was fixed my life was easier, I can collect water nearby, it saves time and I can do my work. My children can go to school rather than spend time collecting water.

On behalf of my community I would like to thank The One Foundation, without them it was a big problem as the whole community was ill but now we are healthy and happy.”

Working with partners on the ground in a district wide coordinated approach, we’re helping to build the early foundations for a sustainable water service in Malawi, so that villages, like Kantukure Village, have access to clean water, forever.

In 2017, with your help, we reached over 83,000 people in Malawi through our clean water programmes. We provided new water points in rural communities by drilling boreholes and building gravity fed water systems. We also improved the sustainability of existing boreholes, like the one in Veronica’s village, by repairing broken pumps and training community members to manage, maintain and repair their water points in the future.

The One Foundation‘s vision is a world in which everyone has access to clean, safe water, forever. You can read more about our work in Malawi on our project pages.

Our programme has now provided Kantukure villagers, including Veronica and her family, with a sustainable clean water solution